The story behind the Hat project in British Columbia’s Golden Triangle is one of hard work, hustling, and ultimately, discovery.
Doubleview Gold Corp (TSX-V:DBG, OTCQB:DBLVF) CEO Farshad Shirvani put some real elbow grease into the acquisition of Hat, a copper porphyry project in northern BC near the prolific Red Chris copper mine. Shirvani, a geologist by training, was intrigued by some data sets he came across nearly 10 years ago concerning the property and set out to raise capital to put a few drill holes in the ground. At the time, copper was an afterthought, with prices too low and not enough demand.
Doubleview’s valuation was languishing without exploration results, and Shirvani felt that there was something special in the ground. So he set out to raise the necessary funds any way he knew how: through friends, family, and even his own wife, who agreed to mortgage the family home. Talk about putting some skin in the game.
READ: Doubleview Gold puts logistical pieces in place ahead of a 2022 exploration program at its Hat property in British Columbia
Armed with funds, but with the pressure mounting, Shirvani and his team set out to put some drill holes in the ground and prove to his nearest and dearest that their trust in him was warranted. That faith even extended to Doubleview’s contractors.
“I had to tell people – hey, listen, I’ll pay you. If you don’t trust me, don’t do the job and if you trust me, do the job. Everyone accepted.”
The first round of drilling consisted of six holes, and, boom, the sixth holes was a technical discovery.
“It showed us that this is a porphyry that comes with a big length, and it works,” he said.
However, the intercept didn’t contain high enough grades to allow Doubleview to go out and raise more money to drill a big program, so it was back to the drawing board for Shirvani. That said, investors understood that there was a deposit there. While Doubleview managed to raise a few hundred thousand dollars, Shirvani was back to counting his pennies.
“I had to bring my secretary as the cook and use myself as a laborer. Any friend I had was up there. But we went up there and started drilling.”
Making the discovery
Doubleview badly needed a real discovery, with good grades to excite the market. Nothing seemed to hit. Shirvani was despondent – until the last core arrived.
“It was dark, I couldn’t see it and I was three feet away. My geologist picked up the last piece, which was 10 inches of the deposit, and he threw the rock at me and said, ‘See? It was worth it to come in here.’”
They had hit chalcopyrite, a copper iron sulfide mineral and the most abundant copper ore mineral. More and more kept coming out of the ground in the years since – including key metals like cobalt, zinc, palladium, gold and silver. “All of the 12 metals grouped together make a large deposit,” Shirvani said.
More recent drilling on the property has been very successful – Shirvani says they “haven’t had a miss” yet. Last year, the company began a new campaign designed to extend the deposit as much as it can and, hopefully, put out a resource estimate by the end of 2022.
What comes next
The pathway to a resource calculation necessitates more drilling, which Doubleview is set to do over the summer. Doubleview’s current focus is on the Lide zone at Hat, which covers around 700 meters east-west and over a kilometre north-south; Shirvani and the team are hoping to extend that to around two kilometres north-south.
Highlights from previously reported drill core intercepts include 27.5 grams per ton (g/t) scandium in one hole that totaled 392.1 metres at 0.48% copper equivalent and 0.62 g/t gold equivalent. Another hole returned 30.3 g/t scandium in a hole that totaled 418.3 g/t at 0.53% copper equivalent and 0.68 g/t gold equivalent.
The metallurgical analysis could have a “significant material impact” on how Doubleview’s copper and gold equivalents are reported, the company said recently.
Doubleview is currently in a much stronger place than it was at its inception. It’s got a proven deposit in Hat and enough money in the bank to continue drilling. For Shirvani, it’s a place that most companies may arrive at if they persevere through the hard times.
“Every company is going to be successful if the principals put really good, hard work into them,” the CEO said.
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t hit (right away), or you don’t find it, there’s always another chance. Companies should stay and drill until they find something. The key is to keep adding and keep adding, and eventually they are going to be successful.”
Contact Angela at angela@proactiveinvestors.com
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